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A number of times in recent years I have spent this mid-August week with a community of friends for their annual vacation in the north of Italy.

Earlier this year I realised that it would not be possible for me to be with the group this year.

So today, knowing that 350 friends are spending this week in a mountain village in the Trentino region, I am remembering past years and savouring the graces with gratitude as I recall, Martino’s baptism last year, the day-long mountain hikes, the food and drink and fun and laughter and conversation after conversation about what is real. and realising that this diverse bunch are only together because Christ has brought us together.

I was especially moved when yesterday one friend sent me the text of Sebastiano’s reflection which opened the vacation.

You have to picture the scene: more than 300 people of all ages for whom this week is an annual commitment, together on the first evening, and listening as Seba began:

We begin this holiday — titled “A New Presence in the World” — with the awareness (and the pain) that around us (colleagues, friends, people we meet) there is a poverty of humanity that is sometimes truly heartbreaking. Yet we are here, because we have always seen that our holiday is not a simple escape from daily life or a way to unplug, but the opportunity to remind ourselves that a different way of living already exists. Inviting someone to come with us, or being here ourselves, means first of all recognising the immense value that this place and this history have for our lives.

But what are we really coming to look for in these days? We come to know the humanity of Christ, to experience it on our own skin. The holiday is a privileged moment to do this because, in the essentiality of what we live, it finally becomes clear who to look at. Everything we will propose in these days — from moments of prayer, to meetings, to outings, up to the simple friendship experienced at the table — has a single purpose: to help us stand more in front of Jesus.

Sebastiano continues:

Let us think back to how it all began: to those twelve who literally stuck to Him. Christianity started like this, and this holiday is designed to make us realise that, today, those twelve can be us with Him. And the splendid thing is that when you stay with Jesus, your interests do not narrow down, they multiply! We begin to look with true curiosity at what happens to others, knowing that the point where Jesus is drawing our friend can become a point for us too.

The holiday must be the evidence of what we have encountered. We are here to learn what on our own we would never be capable of doing: to be educated to love Christ more than anything else. And how do we learn it? Through faces. In these days we will have people next to us whom we did not choose, but whom we will discover to be more “family” than our own family. This is the hundredfold that is promised to us: the possibility, if only we ask for it, to look at reality with the same heart as Jesus.

And if unexpected events happen (and they certainly will), misunderstandings between us, or if there is fatigue in following along, let’s not be frightened and let’s recover by looking at one another. Within this company there is always an Other at work (even in the unexpected!). If this is clear, everything can be overcome.

Let us wish each other, then, to live these days with wide-open eyes and an open heart, eager to (re)start being, together, a new presence in the world.

Have a great holiday, everyone!

I will read these words a number of times over the next week. This community has been significant for me, an artery of life-blood which has transformed much of the way I think and act and pray throughout each year.

And you won’t be at all surprised to know that I am already planning to be in Italy in August next year.

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pics from the vacation in recent years.